The past few days, most of my time has been spent cleaning the house where I have lived for the past eleven years.

It has been, to say the least, a challenge. Things I had put off for “another day” had piled up over the years, and now “another day” had arrived; all of the things I had successful put off for years needed to be done.

Now.

When I was not cleaning and sorting through the physical pieces of my life, I was asleep or awake thinking that I should be asleep or cleaning the house. It was a very meta, very exhausting existence, and then it was done.

With mountains of yarn to disperse, dozens of crochet books to distribute, and many, many pounds of crafting supplies to be rehomed, I thought the task would never end. I spent hours sorting through the crafting pieces of my past which in turn often brought up memories of other times and other places.

This morning, after dropping my dog off for a long overdue bath and taking some hazardous waste to the landfill for appropriate disposal, I set out for the house I have called home for so many years, determined to finish packing up the things that remained, and slowly, but surely I made progress

There were moments I thought the task would never be completed, but then around four o’clock, I reached a point from which there would be no turning back.

The garage was swept, and the downstairs floors were mopped; all that was left to do was to pack up my cleaning supplies and the last few remaining possessions, and go home.

I was about to go out the door when I decided to document some of the best features of the house.

What I consider the best features of the house are probably things others might not notice, let alone consider a “feature.”

One such feature is this mark in the cement of the northwest corner of the front porch:

This spot gets excellent afternoon light, so it often appeared in photos of my work, like this last one that I took with a crochet square I had on my person:

Next, I took this photo of the same square on my beloved back deck where I have spent many hours in a crochet reverie with the squirrels and some lizards I consider crochet companions:

Then, in homage to my many state fair crochet pieces, I went up to the loft and took this photo of the same square posed in the center of the living room where so many of my larger pieces had been before:

With my final crochet photos taken, I toured the house one last time in an effort to find anything that I had overlooked or forgotten, and this is what I found:

I then packed up the crochet wearing styrofoam head that has kept my own head safe the past few days and headed out the door one last time, and then I was done.

Tomorrow will be a new day, and now that everything is out of the house, I will sort through my things and find a place to sit with a cup of coffee and continue to move forward, one stitch at a time.